06 October 2008 - Commenting the day before the European Parliament’s Environment Committee takes a crucial vote on the emissions trading scheme (as well as effort sharing and carbon capture), Green MEP Dr Caroline Lucas said:

"The European Parliament’s environment politicians will show their true colours tomorrow. Will they support the creation of an effective instrument for climate protection or repeat the mistakes of the first phase of emissions trading?

“German Conservative MEP Karl-Heinz Florenz, rapporteur for the EP climate change subcommittee, appears to be leading a double life as a professed advocate of climate protection and a nom de plume for the steel lobby.

“An amendment he is seeking to get through to the ETS report, one of several directly drafted by lobby group Eurofer and signed by certain conservative and liberal colleagues, seeks to tie any auctioning of carbon credits to a future international climate agreement entering into force.

“All know that this is many years away even if such an agreement is concluded in principle in Copenhagen next year.

“The ETS is intended to work as a market mechanism to pass the price of carbon to the market and wider economy, and to ensure the polluter pays. Free allocation will either negate the functioning of the carbon price, or lead to windfall profits for heavy industry. The Parliament’s formal compromise has already been stretched far enough.

“Instead of full auctioning now, it envisages only a 15% share from 2013 rising to 100% in 2020. Indefinitely handing out credits for free, as Florenz is seeking, will completely undermine what is supposed to be the EU’s flagship instrument for addressing climate change.

“If Florenz has his way, the commitment made by Heads of State in March 2007 to make emission cuts of 30% by 2020 in the event of an international agreement will also be thrown into question. He seeks to require that developing countries be subject to the same reduction efforts as industrialised countries as a precondition for the EU stepping up its own efforts. This is a recipe for failure for the very international agreement that he hopes to impose as a condition for auctioning.”

Dr Lucas MEP concluded: “It’s also vital to ensure that climate protection begins at home. The environment committee must resist attempts to delegate as much as half the EU’s extra efforts via CDM/JI projects abroad."

ENDS